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Google I/O 2017 returns to Mountain View from May 17th - 19th
Once again, Google isn't straying too far from its home turf for its annual I/O conference. Like last year it'll be held at Mountain View's Shoreline Amphitheatre. It'll be a bit around the same time again too, running from May 17th to the 19th, according to 9to5 Google. The tech juggernaut is going about this reveal in a rather nerdy way, too.
Google's VR art app is open source and ready to get weird
Google's Tilt Brush is capable of some pretty impressive results. But what if those 3D paintings and projects you made while strapped into virtual reality could escape into the real world? That's the idea behind the open-source Tilt Brush Toolkit, available now on GitHub.
Yahoo open-sources machine learning porn filter
Yahoo is the latest tech company to open source its computer vision code. The beleaguered outfit's application for it? Filtering porn. Yahoo hopes that its convolutional neural net (CNN) will empower others to better guard innocent eyes, but admits that because of the tech's very nature (and how the definition of "porn" can vary wildly), that the CNN isn't perfect. "This model is a general purpose reference model, which can be used for the preliminary filtering of pornographic images," a post on the Yahoo Engineering Tumblr says. "We do not provide guarantees of accuracy of output, rather, we make this available for developers to explore and enhance as an open source project." The code is available on Github at the moment, and if you need any testing material, well, there isn't exactly a shortage of it on Tumblr. Just ask Indonesia.
Facebook opens its advanced AI vision tech to everyone
Over the past two years, Facebook's artificial intelligence research team (also known as FAIR) has been hard at work figuring out how to make computer vision as good as human vision. The crew has made a lot of progress so far (Facebook has already incorporated some of that tech for the benefit of its blind users), but there's still room for improvement. In a post published today, Facebook details not only its latest computer-vision findings but also announces that it's open-sourcing them to the public so that everyone can pitch in to develop the tech. And as FAIR tells us, improved computer vision will not only make image recognition easier but could also lead to applications in augmented reality.
Facebook open sources its 360-degree video camera
Facebook said from the start that it would open source its Surround 360 camera this summer, and it's following through on that promise. You can now visit GitHub to learn how to build the camera, install its software and (naturally) tweak both the hardware and software to meet your needs. Just keep in mind that this isn't exactly a homebrew project -- you'll need about $30,000 in parts to build the official version. It's more for video pros that want to produce 360-degree content without having to turn to pricier, pre-packaged offerings like Nokia's Ozo. Still, it's worth exploring the source if you want to either see how Facebook's VR cam works or design a lower-cost alternative.
Apollo 11's source code is now on GitHub
The source code for Apollo 11's guidance computer has been available for a while (Google hosted it several years ago, for instance), but would you know how to find it or search through it? As of this week, it's almost ridiculously easy. Former NASA intern Chris Garry has posted the entire Apollo Guidance Computer source code on GitHub, giving you a good peek at the software that took NASA to the Moon. As Reddit users point out, it's clear that the developers had a mighty sense of humor -- line 666 of the lunar landing turns up a "numero mysterioso," and there's even a reference to radio DJ Magnificent Montague's classic "burn, baby, burn."
White House speeds up (and opens up) online petitions
The White House's We the People site is supposed to help the government hear your calls for change, but that isn't quite how it worked out: backlogs meant that it took ages to respond to petitions. You'll be glad to hear that the service is getting a much-needed tune-up, though. As of today, the White House plans to respond to any petition that hits the 100,000-signature goal within 60 days "wherever possible." There's also a new team dedicated solely to making sure that the right people see a petition, which should help cut through some of the bureaucratic hierarchy.
Enjoy this LSD trip from the comfort of your web browser
It's time to stop what you're doing an enjoying some soothing visuals brought to you by physics. Created by George Corney, the browser-based GPU fluid simulation reacts when you click and drag your mouse. The resulting psychedelic dreamscape is a mesmerizing swirl of magic that's sure to destroy your productivity. A retractable controller in the top right corner adjusts the quality of the simulation and can reset the particles when you're ready to start over. You can check out Corney's GitHub page if you're interested in contributing to the project or just checking out his code. Or you can just keep watching the swirls. All the pretty swirls.
China's 'Great Cannon' shoots down websites it doesn't like
According to a new report from Citizen Lab, China has not only built itself a "Great Cannon" but has already fired it as well. This potent online weapon seems to be capable of intercepting internet traffic at the national level then directing it at specific networks to knock them offline. China's already widely suspected of being behind the recent attack against Github, which was overloaded for nearly a week via "an ongoing and evolving large DDOS attack." Now it appears that Github's attackers used the Cannon to redirect that traffic from Chinese search engine giant Baidu to cripple the website. All reportedly because the San Francisco-based website hosted a pair of pages that link to content banned in China.
Google Code is shutting down because everyone loves GitHub
Goodbye, Google Code. The technology giant has decided to close its project hosting and code collaboration site because, well, there are simply better alternatives on the web. Google says it launched the platform back in 2006 because it was unhappy with the "limited" options available to the open source community. Since then, the likes of GitHub and Bitbucket have risen to prominence, superseding Google Code's feature set and encouraging developers to transfer their projects. As such, Google's offering has become increasingly filled with spam and abuse, leading to the company's decision to pull the plug. Yesterday it stopped accepting new projects, and on August 24th the site will become read-only. Google Code will eventually be shuttered next January, although tarballs of project source, issues and wikis will continue to be available throughout 2016. If you need to transfer a project, head here for the relevant GitHub and Bitbucket migration tools.
The US Army wants you to look at code it uses to spot cyberattacks
Believe it or not, the US government doesn't always keep its cyberwarfare code a secret. The Army Research Lab has quietly posted the source code for Dshell, a tool it uses to both spot and understand cyberattacks against the Department of Defense. The hope is that this open-door policy will not only help other countries and companies defend against hackers, but help improve the US military's own safeguards -- if you have a knack for digital security, you could spot flaws or offer improvements.
Porn studios' copyright takedowns are making it hard to find code
Aggressive anti-piracy efforts often have their share of unintended victims, but the porn industry's crackdowns are leading to some decidedly unusual collateral damage: open source software. TorrentFreak notes that copyright takedown requests from studios like Wicked Pictures are removing Google search results for GitHub code projects whose names are only vaguely similar to adult movies, or even the studios' names. Among the casualties are Facebook's Rebound (a spring physics add-on), Netflix's Lipstick (workflow visualization) and OpenSUSE Linux's Wicked (a network setup tool).
GitHub's free student bundle gets you started on writing code
It's harder to score student discounts on programming tools now that many of them are subscription services, but GitHub has just launched a bundle that could make it far less expensive to get cracking. Its new Student Developer Pack gives you free access to the kind of tools you'd typically need to get a serious coding project off the ground, including the Unreal game engine, cloud hosting and GitHub's own code repository service. How much you get for free varies. Some partners simply offer credit, while others will give you a subscription -- in a few cases, for as long as you're still a student. The hope is that you'll like the tools enough to pay for them later, of course, but it's hard to knock an offer that leaves you with fewer school-related bills.
Qualcomm briefly takes down Android code for CyanogenMod, Sony and itself
The Android community just got a big (if brief) scare. In the space of a few days, Qualcomm has both made and retracted a Digital Millennium Copyright Act request that took down 116 code repositories (many of them Android-focused) that were allegedly using the chip maker's confidential technology. As it turns out, quite a few of the targets were legitimate users running the company's open source software. And you'll definitely recognize some of the names -- the move shut down code bases maintained by the CyanogenMod custom ROM team, Sony and even Qualcomm itself. Suffice it to say that the removal would have created a lot of headaches if you wanted to modify Android for the many, many devices with Snapdragon processors.
Apple TV hacker discovers how to add custom sites on older firmware
David Schuetz, an Apple TV hobbyist, has been exploring some interesting behavior on pre-iOS 7 Apple TVs. After a bit of hacking, he discovered a way to enable an Add Site feature. This feature opens the possibility of adding custom sites to the Apple TV menu, letting him hook up a Raspberry Pi media server to his ATV. [The iOS 7-equivalent build of the Apple TV OS, released in September, is version number 6, as the ATV is a version number behind the iPhone and iPad. This hack works on v5.x and earlier-build Apple TVs. -Ed.] He wrote up the details of his discovery on his company website and posted a Github repository containing a talk he recently gave on the subject. Although Schuetz points out the hack does not require a jailbreak, this approach is not suitable for either the weak of heart or (currently) those who have upgraded to the latest Apple TV firmware. Although I suspect the Add Site button is meant for Apple's internal development team and not planned for eventual public use, it's pretty cool stuff. A video demo follows.
Smithsonian adds iPad app code to its collection
The Smithsonian Institution's 19 museums hold millions of items, and now the collection includes iPad app source code. The Cooper-Hewitt design museum in New York is one of those many Smithsonian "attics" that stash away the world's treasures, and it recently acquired the source code to an iPad app called Planetary (free). The app is a music visualizer that was written by Bloom Studio, a company that's no longer in business. The Cooper-Hewitt has open-sourced the code on Github, and the museum has committed to not only boost the development of any outgrowth from the open-source project, but to also preserve those descendants of Planetary as well. In case you're wondering, the museum requires a physical paper record, so the source code has been printed on archival paper in the machine-readable OCR-A font.
Github tool extracts all your Google Reader data, including starred items, tags and more
Google Reader is shutting down and you, hopefully, have backed up your Reader data for future import into your reader app of choice. As pointed out by Mihai Parparita of persistent.info, Google's Takeout service creates a backup of the RSS subscriptions, but fails to include all the data like starred items, tags, comments and more. To grab all your data, Parparita has created a tool that uses Google's API to pull down everything but the kitchen sink from your Reader account. You can download the reader_archive tool from github and check out the article on persistent.info. The article details other tools like CloudPull and the readerisdead.com website that compiles tools, tips and tricks on extracting all your data from Google Reader. Happy Google Reader backup weekend, folks!
DevJuice: iOS Artwork Extractor updated
Many devs find it useful to inspect system artwork -- whether for inspiration, for reverse engineering to help create consistent new elements or simply for curiosity. In that goal, there's been no better tool than the open-source iOS Artwork Extractor from Cédric Luthi. The project, formerly UIKit Artwork Extractor, has now been updated for pretty much any iOS version you throw at it, including iOS 7. It also now enables you to scan arbitrary frameworks, not just UIKit. It's a handy utility, one well worth checking out.
OmniGroup releases OmniPresence, free sync technology for OS X and iOS
OmniGroup, the Seattle-based developers of OmniOutliner, OmniGraphSketcher, OmniGraffle, OmniFocus and OmniPlan, has announced that today they are shipping OmniPresence document syncing. OmniPresence rounds out the automatic syncing solutions that OmniGroup added first to OmniFocus in 2008 and OmniPlan in 2011. OmniGroup CEO Ken Case noted in a May 20 blog post that OmniPresence works well with Mac apps that support OS X Auto Save and Versions. To quote Case, "Using the same underlying document coordination as Versions, OmniPresence lets your app know when a document has been changed on another device, and double-checks to make sure it always syncs a current and complete copy of any documents currently being edited. OmniPresence can't prevent conflicting edits from multiple devices, but when that happens it automatically saves both versions of conflicting edits so that no edits are lost." OmniPresence is built on top of open web server technologies, which means that users can sync document using their own web server. Apache server, for example, is built into Mountain Lion Server, so any user or company can keep OmniPresence syncing running well into the future. Since many customers will choose not to set up their own servers, OmniGroup is scaling up their Omni Sync Server to support OmniPresence. Anyone who previously checked the "I am brave" box on sync.omnigroup.com should already have access. Developers will be able to see the source code to OmniPresence on github. A demo video of OmniPresence in action is embedded below. Show full PR text The Omni Group Releases OmniPresence: Free Sync Technology for OS X and iOS Customers now able to quickly and privately sync documents across multiple devices SEATTLE, Washington-May 23, 2013-The Omni Group, developer of productivity applications for Mac, iPad and iPhone, today announced the release of OmniPresence, a new way for users to sync documents. This completes the effort to bring full synchronization to each of the Omni Group's five applications. At the core of OmniPresence are open, free and tested technologies, chosen specifically so users can store their data anywhere. This is an approach vastly different from the proprietary - and sometimes short-lived - sync services on the market today. Put simply, OmniPresence syncs everything within a folder between many devices using a standard web server. Because of the way OmniPresence was designed, customers also have the advantage of being able to keep all data under their own control. This is sometimes a necessity for confidential data within companies. "OmniPresence is built to last," says Ken Case, CEO of the Omni Group. "Rather than building document syncing on top of a proprietary service that might not be available to you in five years, we built OmniPresence on top of open server technologies so that anyone can run their own service. If you're headed to Mars or Antarctica and want to be able to sync documents between devices while you're there, all you need is a run-of-the-mill server and OmniPresence." If customers aren't interested in self-hosting, many free web hosting providers offer the necessary support to get started. The Omni Group today also released a free and open-source framework for iOS developers to add support for OmniPresence to any document-based application on the iPad or iPhone. OmniPresence is a free download for the latest version of OS X, and is built into each of the Omni Group's document-based apps on the iPad: OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner and OmniGraphSketcher. These apps join OmniFocus and OmniPlan, bringing syncing to the Omni Group's entire family of products. ### About OmniPresence: OmniPresence brings syncing to the Omni Group's document-based applications for Mac and iPad. Built to last, it was designed with the user's privacy - and the data's portability - in mind. About The Omni Group: Founded in 1993 as a software consultancy and one of the first companies dedicated to developing software for OS X, the Omni Group is focused on making productivity software enjoyable to use. The employee-owned company is happy to call beautiful Seattle, Washington home.
Sony posts its first AOSP build for the Xperia Z (video)
Sony is quickly developing a reputation as the tinkerer's phone maker of choice: it took on responsibility for maintaining AOSP on the Xperia S even when Google couldn't. Today, it's proving that commitment to open software by releasing an Android 4.2.2-based AOSP build for one of its 2013 flagships, the Xperia Z. The initial public version is rough and has to go without proprietary camera and cellular drivers, although it does support Bluetooth, GPS, SD storage, WiFi and a host of sensors. Developers and other experimenters can grab the necessary code on GitHub; the rest of us can stick to marginally safer CyanogenMod nightlies.
